Ahead of Saturday’s VGMA!

The chorus that many music industry folk have repeated since the nominees for this year’s Vodafone Ghana Music Awards was released is that, after 14 years, the event has reached a stage where unnecessary and avoidable controversies should not arise.

That the awards have become controversial cannot be argued. Over the years, some of these controversies have come up as a result of measures put out to address other controversies all in a bid to ensure sanity in the awards.

There were times that, songs which were considered to be sexually explicit were banned from the awards while others with sexually suggestive lyrics were allowed to contest. Such needless and unnecessary controversies have threatened to affect the credibility of the awards.

Since organisers, Charterhouse have promised of a total overhaul immediately after this year’s awards, may I suggest one important perception that appears to have been ignored but which in my opinion is imperative to the awards.

It is that, there are still people who think that, some musicians pay the VGMA Board members to be considered for nominations and some of them even go further to pay to win awards.

Why and how anybody will have such a mindset is beyond my comprehension but the reality is that, unfortunately, many people believe it. How can Charterhouse make the VGMA Board members redeem themselves and prevent individuals from stereotyping them as an outfit that collects money from musicians before they win awards?

After this year’s awards, perhaps Charterhouse should consider publishing the figures that were collated by the event statisticians. This can be done a day or two after the awards, so musicians who did not campaign for their fans to vote for them and instead were busy making needless noises but thought their fans were voting for them to see “their smoothness level”.

I want this to be done, so musicians understand that, even when their song is the most popular song in the country, it may not necessarily translate into votes. And the fact that an artiste is hailed when they are announced to perform or when their song is played is no guarantee for votes.

I’m suggesting this using the recently New Patriotic Party’s Delegate Conference in Tamale were incumbents who had predicted and were confident of a landslide victory were show “their smoothness level” by losing their positions with not so impressive results in their favour as an example.

Another reason for this suggestion is that, at the 2013 Ghana Movie Awards, Funny Face and Esi, both of Chorkor Trotro on TV3 picked the Best Actor and Best Actress nods respectively. At this juncture, many had predicted Chorkor Trotro to pick the Best Television series nod but they lost to another series, Heartbreak Hotel.

Those were categories that carried 100 per cent voting weight from the general public. I had my doubts until I saw the results of the voting from the organizer of the awards a few days later.

Most patrons had left the auditorium thinking that, there were underground dealings and that was why the award eluded Chorkor Trotro, when the series had already bagged the Best Actor and Best Actress awards.

People will always think otherwise, until they are proved wrong. There are lots of positives to be acquired if this suggestion is adopted. In a way, this idea will help Charterhouse to silence some critics.

If I make so much noise that my favourite artiste didn’t win any or an award I pegged him to win and the results shows that truly the musician really didn’t garner enough votes to win like I expected, I will recoil into my shell and not throw tantrums at the organisation.

Now over to you Charterhouse. This is not something that you need approval from Parliament. It is time to take that bold decision, now!